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Psychology 348 Term 2 Summary
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In-depth summary of all lectures and readings covered in term 2 of Psychology 348
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PSYCHOLOGY 348MARETHA VISSER — Social support as a community resource
— SOCIAL SUPPORT
Social support can be de ned as a mutually bene cial exchange of resources between individuals. Social support is an
important part of any relationship. During times of life change or crisis, individuals are cushioned from harmful psychological
and physiological consequences when such events are experienced in the presence of social support. Friends, families and co-
workers often help one another in times of crisis or stress. Most people view satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their social
relationships as a major determinant of overall life satisfaction.
Social support is not only a variable on an individual level; it forms part of social patterns and contributes to a sense of
community. It is of particular relevance to Community Psychology because it links the individual and the social systems of
which they are a part. By enhancing social support, community resources and welfare can be improved, because the
conditions in which people live may be friendlier and the development of mental health problems may be prevented (from a
mental health perspective). Social support can also contribute to the development of a therapeutic environment in situations
where people experience stress or psychological problems.
Using a social action model in social support for an issue can empower and mobilise people to stand up for their rights. There
is power in numbers. This is illustrated in the effect of mass action taking place in labour disputes over the past few years in
South Africa.
CONCEPTUAL PRESPECTIVES ON SOCIAL SUPPORT
Social support is not a simple unitary concept; it represents a collection of social, emotional, cognitive and behavioural
processes that occur within interpersonal relationships that provide aid and promote adaptive coping. Social support can be
conceptualised in terms of three dimensions: structural dimensions, functional dimensions, and experienced or perceived
support.
1. STRUCTURAL DIMENSION OR SOCIAL EMBEDDEDNESS:
Social embeddedness refers to a general sense of being integrated into a group of people, of belonging, acceptance
and care. Social embeddedness also refers to quantitative measures of social support such as:
- the number of connections an individual has in his or her social network
- the frequency of contact with members in a social network
- the degree of demographic similarity or difference of members in the network (age, gender, class, etc.)
- the density or interconnectedness of networks (this refers to the number of people in the social network that
know each other)
- the degree of reciprocity in supportive transactions (this refers to the extent that people are supporters and
receivers of support. Some people may only demand support and do not support others)
Tolsdorf classi es relationships in terms of intensity. The more the number of content areas are in a relationship, the
more important that relationship is for the participants. For example, when a relationship contains many content
areas, such as being friends and being economically, recreationally and socially involved, it is regarded as an intense
relationship that is important to a person.
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Using concentric circles similar to Bronfenbrenner’s levels of community, supportive people in a person’s life can be
plotted in terms of their distance from the individual. Closest to the centre are those relationships that are most
important to the person. These involve people who are potentially the most supportive, such as family members and
close friends. Further from the centre are those relationships that are linked to the person’s current roles such as
neighbours or co-workers. These relationships can easily change over time as the roles of the individual change.
2. FUNCTIONAL DIMENSION OR ENACTED SUPPORT:
Enacted support, or the availability of actual support, refers to the actions people perform when they provide
support. The main functions of social support can be divided into the following categories:
- Instrumental or material support: the provision of goods or services that help solve practical problems. For
example, giving assistance by doing chores, lending money, providing transport or helping with practical tasks.
- Emotional support: the encouragement, caring, trust and empathy that comfort a person and help them
believe that they are respected and loved. The support is often unconditional, and may be related to attachment
in close relationships.
- Esteem support or encouragement: support that builds a person’s self-esteem and contributes to a feeling
of being valued and accepted despite shortcomings. The person’s sense of competence in dealing with a speci c
problem is enhanced by this type of support.
- Cognitive or informational support: giving information, advice or guidance to solve a problem. It can also
include providing information or a cognitive framework for the person to understand or assess his or her
situation.
- Companionship: spending time with others in leisure and recreational activities. It ful ls a need for af liation
and contact with others and facilitates a positive mood. It can also distract the person from worrying about the
problems that they are experiencing.
The actual support people receive can be analysed in terms of the following concepts:
- How many people in the person’s network actually provide support, advice or feedback.
- How balanced the providing and receiving of support in a social network is. Some people support many others,
but receive little support. Such people are socially embedded, but do not really have resources they can utilise.
However, there are also people who ask and receive considerable support, but do not give support in return. They
may eventually request too much support and can exhaust their resources.
3. PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT:
Perceived social support refers to a person’s cognitive appraisal of the support that they receive from others. This
refers to the experience of how available and how appropriate the support really is. Perceived support may therefore
differ largely from the external evaluation of the number of people involved and the way they provide support.
Barrera contends that a person’s expectation and perception of support are the most important factors in the
person’s experiences of a situation and play a role in psychological wellbeing.
CONTEXTUAL FACTORS RELATED TO SOCIAL SUPPORT
Social support does not occur in a vacuum, it is shaped by the dynamics of different relationships. Not all relationships offer
socially supportive. On the contrary, some relationships can contribute to the experience of stress. Various aspects of the
transactions between people in uence the amount and kind of social support available:
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• The supporter: receiver will value the support of someone they trust more than support from other people.
• The recipient: the interpersonal style of a person in need of support in uences the support they receive. Knowing
when and whom to ask for help and not asking too much is a matter of judgement and interpersonal skill. A person
may ask for too much support and exhaust the goodwill of others. Some people may not have interpersonal skills or
may feel too guilty or hopeless that they do not use available social support.
• Similarity: people are more likely to help those whom they perceive as similar to themselves because they can
identify and empathise with them. They can put themselves in the other person’s position and know that they would
have liked others to help them if they had been in a similar situation.
• The context: when a person in need of help is perceived to be responsible for his or her own problem, then that
person is less likely to receive help than someone whose problem is attributed to uncontrolled or external causes.
• The culture: receiving support is perceived differently in different cultures. In Chinese culture, openly receiving
support from others may re ect poorly on the person and the person’s family, as the family are suppose to provide
the needed support.
EFFECT OF SOCIAL SUPPORT ON THE SUPPORTER
Riessman studied the effects of providing support to others and found that the helper also bene ts from providing help. The
most effective way of learning is to teach; therefore by helping others acquire new skills, attitudes, behaviour and a different
mindset, people also help themselves. A person’s self-esteem and feelings of worth are also enhanced if they can help
someone else. However, continually supporting others, for example the chronically ill or elderly, can result in burnout and
neglect of one’s own needs. Caregivers also need emotional support to keep on caring and they need recognition for the help
they provide.
DOWNSIDE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT
Researchers interested in stress and coping originally became interested in social support as a way of explaining why some
individuals with high levels of exposure to stress did not suffer negative outcomes. Social support was presumed to moderate
the effects of stressors. A review of the literature led to the conclusion that social support has been consistently associated with
lower risk for psychological problems. However, later research indicated that the effects of social support were complicated by
many interacting factors and there are also negative effects related to supportive relationships.
Loss of social support can contribute to stress in situations such as marital disruption, bereavement, loss of work and moving
home. Researchers now agree that social support is not a panacea. The value of social support depends on interaction with
contextual factors. Social support as a community resource is applied mainly to the formation of self-help groups and in lay
counselling programmes.
— SELF-HELP GROUPS
Self-help or mutual help groups are voluntary small-group structures where individuals in similar situations come together to
assist and support each other emotionally in order to satisfy common needs or overcome a common handicap or life-
disrupting problem. Self-help refers to individuals taking responsibility for their recovery or ability to cope because they often
feel that their needs are not, or cannot, be met through existing social institutions. Self-help groups emphasise face-to-face
social interaction and mutual help. They often provide material assistance and emotional support, and help members to attain
and enhance a sense of personal identity. Self-help groups have four distinctive features:
1. Members share a concern, namely a problem or life crisis affecting all of them.
2. Relationships among members are on an equal level.
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3. There is reciprocity of helping so that each member both receives and provides help.
4. The emphasis is on sharing personal experiences and learning from each other’s experiences rather than gain- ing
professional expertise.
Self-help groups are among the fastest-growing forms of assistance, adding substantially to community resources. In South
Africa, there are growing numbers of people joining support groups for people living with HIV/AIDS. The rapid growth of self-
help movements illustrates the need people have for mutual help and for the sense of community that such groups can
provide. It indicates the gaps in traditional health services.
TYPES OF SELF-HELP GROUPS
Levine et al. divide self-help groups into ve different categories:
- People who are excluded or stigmatised, for example those with mental disorders, and those who abuse alcohol, or are
physically disabled.
- People related to stigmatised persons who need assistance to cope, such as the families of drug abusers and parents of
mentally handicapped children
- People with common problems that need others in the same position to understand their situation, such as single parents,
widows and parents of children with cancer
- Groups organised along ethnic, religious or racial lines such as immigrant or religious groups
- Quasi-political or advocacy groups trying to protect speci c interests or promote public awareness, such as gay and lesbian
or anti-abortion groups, or nature conservation groups. These groups utilise social action to change community perception
with the aim of changing policies
DYNAMICS OF SELF-HELP GROUPS
The strength of self-help lies in the fact that it provides most of the necessary social support functions. It also re ects many of
the principles of Community Psychology. Self-help groups are indigenous resources that contribute to the prevention or
solution of problems through the empowerment of members and can also provide curative support. In terms of
Bronfenbrenner’s theory, a new microsystem is created by providing acceptance, support and an increased sense of
belonging. This contributes to the personal development of the individual, and provides an ongoing context that can enhance
sustained adaptation.
People who may see themselves as needing resources have the uplifting experience of providing these to others. For
example, instead of seeing millions of people with disability as people in need of help, they are seen as resources for helping
each other to cope with their everyday concerns.
From studying the dynamics of self-help groups, the following were found to be of value for members:
- Promotion of sense of community— Self-help groups promote a feeling of belonging, that one is not alone and that
others care – they promote a psychological sense of community.
- Philosophy of life— Self-help groups provide a philosophy of life or a code of conduct for members to interpret the
problems they face and to guide them in handling problems and making decisions. For example: AA’s Twelve Steps, which
teaches members that alcoholism is an illness more powerful than they are.
- Emotional support— As a haven of rest and recuperation, self-help groups offer a place where members can be
themselves and be assured of understanding and acceptance. In discussing emotional experiences, members of the group
can unload unwanted baggage, be understood and forgiven, and learn to understand their own experiences.
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